Second Chance (11 page)

“Good.”

“And if you could oversee all of it, that would be great,” she said. “My mother would probably be willing to pay you.”

“What? I thought you were going to do it. Isn’t that what you told her?”

She laid her head down, the side of her face resting on her forearm. “I got a job offer.”

“Here? On Keefer?”

“No. Back in Madison.”

He was quiet for a long time. “Oh.”

She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say so she didn’t say anything. She kept her head down and didn’t look at him.

“When are you leaving?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

“What’s the job?”

“Nanny,” she said. “Through the same company that sent me here. I think since the position here fell through, they felt like they had to find me something fast. And they did.”

“I guess so.”

She lifted her head to look at him. “But you can oversee the work, right? Just make sure it all gets done?”

He nodded slowly, his fingers playing in the sand. “Sure. I can do that.”

She put her head back down on the towel.

“You sure you wanna go?” he asked.

“It’s a job,” she said. “And it’s a lot of money. I’d be dumb to turn it down.”

“Not what I asked, Elle.”

“I don’t think I’m really in a position to say no, Cash. There’s nothing here for me. As soon as the house sells, I won’t have a place to stay and I’ll still be without a job.”

“Wouldn’t you rather do something besides nanny?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a nanny,” she said, irked at what she thought he was inferring. “I like kids. It’s good money. It’s a good job.”

“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with being a nanny,” he said and his voice had an edge to it. “That’s not what I meant. I just thought…I don’t know.”

She looked up again. “You thought what?”

He waved a hand in the air. “Never mind.” He pushed himself off the sand and brushed off his pants. He picked up his shoes, which he’d set next to him. “I’ll come by later and pick up the estimates. If that’s OK.”

“I can run up and get them now,” she said.

“No,” he said, shaking the sand from his shoes. “It’s fine. I’ll just come by later. I don’t want to interrupt your time here.”

“You’re not interrupting,” she said.

“See you later,” he said and turned abruptly, walking quickly over the dunes and back toward the street.

Elle pushed herself up, trying to spot him before he hit the street, but he’d walked too quickly and disappeared before she could catch another glimpse of him. She turned herself around on her towel and faced the ocean. She was hot and needed to cool off, but she didn’t feel like getting up.

She’d stuck to her guns. She did what she said she was going to do. She’d made a decision. She was going to tell Connie at Nice Nannies that she wanted the job. Leave Keefer Island and get on with her life. And forget the past. She was finally going to be a grown-up, make her own decisions and keep her eyes forward rather than looking behind her. The cottage, Cash, Keefer. They were all part of her past. She needed new things to look forward to.

She was picking her path.

She thought she should’ve been proud of herself.

But as she stared at the ocean, she couldn’t help but think all she was doing was losing something.

Or someone.

TWENTY

Elle wished she hadn’t given Cash the note.

She was back in her grandmother’s room, rummaging through the drawers. The roofer wanted information on whether or not it had been replaced within the last twenty years, something about warranties and materials. She had no idea but figured her grandmother would have kept the information in one of her folders.

Elle didn’t find anything. Not in the bottom drawer, not in the middle drawer, and not in the top drawer where she’d found the letter from Cash.

She thought about what he’d said. About the letter. He wasn’t the one she should be asking about it.

Who, then? The only other person who had seen it was dead. Her grandmother.

She shook her head in frustration and a dusting of sand fell to the table. She smiled in spite of herself. It was just like before, she thought. Covered in sand and a sunburn, trudging back up to the cottage, her grandmother herding her into the bathroom to wash the salt and sand away. Letting the water wash over her, using her grandmother’s soaps and lotions, special ones handcrafted by a friend of hers on the island. Dressing in a clean t-shirt and shorts, sitting down to dinner or, as she’d gotten older, heading out for an evening with friends. Or Cash.

She wanted an answer. Before she left, before she packed up and returned to Wisconsin, she wanted an answer. She wanted to know what had happened with Cash all those years ago. Why her grandmother had a letter from him. What he meant when he said she should be asking someone else about it.

She needed that.

She pushed away from the desk. He said he’d come by that evening for the estimates. She nodded to herself. That was fine. He was going to get a lot more than that. He was going to get questions.

And she expected answers.

She took a quick shower, nostalgia washing over her with the water as she opened a bottle of soap tucked away in the corner of the tub. Twelve years had dulled the scent a little but it was still there, the faint smell of honeysuckle that had been her favorite all those years ago.

The heat of the day had started to subside but she still changed into a tank-top and shorts. Even with the ocean breeze, the island never really cooled off during the summer months, not unless there was a storm brewing. She glanced out the window in her bedroom as she changed. The horizon was clear, the blue of the sky melting into the ocean, one stray cloud floating aimlessly.

She checked her phone for messages but there were none. She frowned. She’d called Connie hours ago, had left a message about good news. She bit her lip, wondering if the job offer wasn’t on the table anymore. It would be just her luck, she thought.

She shook her head. No. Connie had been adamant that the job was hers. She was probably just busy.

Elle ran her brush through her hair, working through the wet tangles, and pulled it into a ponytail. She rubbed lotion on her legs and arms, then on her face. Her nose stung a bit and she examined herself in the mirror mounted above the dresser. A pink-tinged nose and cheeks reflected back at her. She smiled. Pink looked good on her.

She padded into the kitchen and poured a glass of water. She grabbed an apple from the fridge and headed out to the back deck. She’d sit for a bit. Have a snack and then she’d do something productive. At least that’s what she told herself.

She polished off her apple just as her phone rang. She wiped her hand on her shorts before pulling her phone out of her pocket. She knew who it was going to be. Connie. And she knew what she was going to tell her.

But it wasn’t Connie. It was her mother.

“How are things going?” she asked.

“Fine,” Elle responded.

“Any estimates yet?”

“A few,” Elle told her. A seagull hovered and Elle tossed the apple core into the garden. It swooped low and pecked at it for a minute. After a glare in her direction, it soared back into the sky, searching for something better.

“How do they look?”

“Fine,” she said.

“And has Cash looked them over, too?” Her mother stumbled over his name, like it pained her to say it.

“Not yet. He’s coming by tonight.”

“Tonight?” Her mother’s voice changed.

Elle frowned. “Yes. Is that a problem?”

“No,” her mother said. “Not at all.”

But Elle could tell by the tone of her voice that it was.

“I’m just surprised,” she continued. “I thought after your
…history with him that things might be a little strained.”

She had no idea, Elle thought. If she’d had a normal mother—a mother she felt comfortable confiding in, a mother who could exhibit maternal feelings—she would have told her. About finding the letter, about the conflicting emotions she felt when she saw him, about how hard it had been to come to terms with accepting the new job and making the decision to leave the island.

But Elle’s mother wasn’t normal.

“Not strained at all,” Elle lied, keeping her tone light.

“So what are your plans then for the evening?”

“He’s picking up the estimates.”

“And?”

Elle bristled a little. She was thirty years old. She didn’t need to account for her evenings and she didn’t need to report her plans to anyone, least of all her mother.

“And then we’ll probably have sex on the living room floor,” Elle said. “But we won’t do it on top of the estimates, I promise.”

“Elle!”

“And what, Mother?” she asked exasperated. “He’s coming over to get the estimates. And that’s it.”

Her mother finally got the hint. “Alright,” she said. “You’ll call me tomorrow, then? I’d like to get things in motion. Danielle says we need to get the house on the market soon. Take advantage of the summer sales months.”

Elle rolled her eyes. Danielle was a realtor friend of her mother’s in Madison. In Wisconsin, it probably did matter when you put houses on the market. After all, no one did much of anything during the winter months besides hibernate. But on the island? Keefer Island was a year-round destination for vacationers. And she was pretty sure houses would sell regardless of what month they went on the market.

“I’ll get them to you tomorrow,” Elle promised.

They hung up.

Elle stood and stretched and checked the time. It was almost six o’clock.

Still no phone call from Connie.

And still no word from Cash.

TWENTY-ONE

She needed something to do after the phone call from her mother, something to keep her busy, to keep her mind off the silence from Nice Nannies.

So she’d tackled the wallpaper.

An hour and a half later, there were piles of soggy wallpaper on the living room floor. She’d given up trying to corral all the pieces, had stopped worrying about damaging the wood flooring with the wet, gloppy mess. They were getting refinished, she told herself as she dropped more paper to the floor.

She’d set her volume to high on her phone but it had remained maddeningly silent. She tried not to worry about it. She knew how things could come up, things that could prevent someone from making phone calls. She’d essentially told the receptionist that she was accepting the job, hadn’t she? She’d said she had good news for Connie. Maybe that was all she’d needed, Elle thought. Maybe she would call tomorrow to make flight arrangements and figure out a start date.

Or maybe she wouldn’t.

Elle erased that thought from her head. She’d already made up her mind. She was moving back to Wisconsin. The sooner, the better.

The doorbell rang and she felt the butterflies rise up. She knew who it would be. And she remembered what she’d promised herself earlier that day. Questions. Answers.

She stepped down from the dining room chair she was using as a makeshift step stool . She took a deep breath before opening the door.

It wasn’t Cash.

It was Mary Stafford.

Elle couldn’t hide her surprise. “What are you doing here?”

Her almost-employer smiled at her. “Apologizing.”

“What?”

Mary shrugged. “I felt really bad about what happened. The job. When Kevin mentioned where you were staying, I wanted to come by. To apologize and to bring you this.” She held out a covered paper plate. “They’re just brownies. Nothing special. But I wanted to do something.”

Elle took the plate. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“I know,” Mary said. “But I wanted to.”

“Well, thank you,” Elle said. “Did you want to come in for a minute or…?”

Mary shook her head. “No, no. I need to get back. I got the boys to bed but they’re light sleepers.” She sighed. “They’re always waking up.”

By the sound of her voice, Elle was pretty sure Mary was just as sad the nanny job hadn't worked out as Elle was.

“OK. Well, thanks for these,” Elle said, holding up the plate.

“It’s the least I could do. Kevin said you had another job offer through the nanny agency so I’m glad something good has come out of all of this. I’m just sorry you had to come all this way for nothing.”

“It wasn’t for nothing.” Elle paused. “I wanted to come back to the island. I needed to.”

Mary eyed her curiously. “For Cash?”

Elle pulled back, startled. “Excuse me?”

The other woman’s face flushed. “Sorry. I just thought…”

Elle studied her. What exactly did Mary think?